I've wanted to write about this for a while, but got so tied up with work and family that I didn't get a chance. As written before, the social media analytics field is becoming more and more mainstream.
Since FB cracked the 500 million users (with 150 million alone in the US) it is pretty much obvious for anyone that these eyeballs will get targeted with advertising and there will be a social media analytics industry, which will monitor & analyze all kind of social media.

One of my friends Marshall Sponder, better known as Webmetricsguru started to write a book, which will be published as the "Socialmedianalyticsbook by McGraw Hill in August. Since I spoke with him a bunch of times I can assure anyone, who is looking into evaluating different social media analytics vendors, that his book will be the reference to make that decision. Usually I don't endorse books here, but I've seen how many vendors and tools he's tested and worked with. The book is also less about theory than a practical guide for anyone, who is looking into this new industry. If you are interested, head over to Socialmedianalyticsbook.com or pre-order at Amazon.